"The myth is that
Frida and I were there as a front for Björn and Benny's
music. But the truth of the matter is that we were the people
that could bring over precisely what they couldn't do with their
previous bands"-Agnetha Faltskog

ABBA emerged from the Swedish
music scene in the early 1970's.
ABBA were a "Supergroup'. In a "Supergroup" each
of the group members has had a prior successful recording career.
The group name, ABBA is an acronym of the first intials from
each of the group members names (A-Agnetha,B-jorn, B-enny,A-nni-frid).
That's why capital letters are used when spelling out ABBA.

Singer-guitarist Björn
Ulvaeus and keyboardist Benny Andersson's
partnership as a recording duo, writing and production team began
in late 1969.
As the duo, Björn and Benny, they released one album, LYCKA,
and five Swedish singles. The romantic involvement between Björn
& Agnetha and Benny & Frida was a key reason why the
four would work together both as a group and a solo artists.

The first recording with all
four eventual members of ABBA was called "Hej Gamle Man",
it dates from Mid 1970 and was actually a credited to , Björn
and Benny as a duo.

Although Agnetha Fältskog
and Anni-frid Lyngstad would sing on many of the songs recorded
by Björn and Benny , it wasn't till 1972 that the first
single was released with all four of their names on it. That
song was "People Need Love" which would be released
on ABBA's RING RING album.

On stage, the story was slightly
different. the four eventual ABBA members first played on stage
together in November 1970 as the group FESTFOLK.
It did not go well, but they tried performing together again
in 1971 and worked together at other concerts between 1970-1972.
They can be seen in this incarnation in 1970 doing "California
Here I Come"on TV.This clip can be seen on the Super
Troupers documentary. The clip is fascinating , but it
perfectly illustrates what was wrong with the FESTFOLK approach,.
Instead of doing cabaret style/variety show music they needed
to be doing original fresh self-written pop songs that featured
the girls singing.....this they soon discovered!...```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

The cross pollination between
the future members of ABBA was a common thing in the years before
ABBA. Björn produced some of Agnetha's early 1970's albums.
Benny produced Frida between 1969-1972. During 1969-72 Frida
would sing on some Agnetha's songs and Agnetha sang on some of
Frida's singles. Many of these early efforts can be found on
the PA SVENSKA compilation or on the various solo albums (See
Frida and Agnetha links).

In
some ways this is the birth of ABBA.The title means Happiness!
This is a very interesting album. Björn and Benny wrote
the music to all of the songs and some of the lyrics. The whole
album is sung in Swedish . Björn doing most of the lead
vocals, with Benny providing some backing vocals. The original
album featured eleven songs.

This album features the first
track to have all future members of ABBA on it and this
is the very first album to have all the music written by Björn
and Benny.

Acoustic and Electric Guitar
feature prominently here, The electric guitar in particular dominates
on "Kalles Visa" .This album is a bit more serious
in tone than some of the later B&B songs and early ABBA songs
that would follow in the early
and mid-Seventies. None of the songs here (even in translation)
have a bubble gum lyrics or sound.

"Hej Gamle Man"
(Hello Old Man) was released as the single from this album and
proved to be successful, though the album was not overly successful.
"Hej Gamle Man" features Agnetha and Frida on backing
vocals. It was the first song to feature all four members of
Abba. "Kara Gamla Sol" is the only song on the album
sung by Benny.

More impressive to me is the
great acoustic
guitar workout "Liselotte " (it features lyrics by
Agnetha and Björn); The anthemic "Ge Oss En Chans"
has some soulful singing and some great organ. A nice little
touch can be found at the beginning of "Lilla Du, Lilla
Van' which has Benny's piano come in at a low volume. As a whole,
this album features some of Björn's best work.

The stark brown cover is telling.
It's clear that their is seriousness of purpose and intent in
these two young man. Benny's soon-to-be trademark beard puts
in it's first appearence on a album cover (Benny never had a
beard on the Hep Stars album covers). Björn looks a little
smug but the trademark smile is there. The Swedish flag on the
Guitar seems to say ,"We represent Sweden to the world".

The later Lp pressings and
the Cd versions of LYCKA include a 1971 A -side that wasn't on
the original album. That A-side "Tank Om Jorden Vore Ung'
features Agnetha and Frida on backing vocals and like a few of
the B&B records has a ever-so slight country twinge to it.

The LYCKA album was recorded
in the Summer of 1970. It was Produced by Björn and Benny
with Bengt Bernhag and engineered by Michael B.Tretow.

There was supposed to be a
followup album released by Björn and Benny but before
it was anywhere near completion , Agnetha and Frida had joined
up with Björn and Benny to change the group from a duo to
a quartet.

Björn and Benny continued
to release singles through till 1972. These singles were rereleased
as bonus tracks on the 20006 reissue of LYKCA.

The 1971 Bjorn and Benny
A-side "Tank Om Jorden Vore Ung"
was included on later LP pressings and the first 1991 Cd..

Björn
and Benny's singles from 1969-1972 (and the CD's wherethey can be found...( @- indicates Anna
& Frida sang on the record)

Björn and Benny released
a number of
singles in Sweden, Japan and a few other
places. Although a couple of the singles were drawn from the
LYCKA album,
many of the songs wouldn't appear on album at the time, and some
of the
tracks have never made it onto an official album, until the 2006
CD resiisue of LYCKA

The rest of the tracks are
oonly available on the LYCKA reissue. The hardest -these tracls
are "Inga Theme', "Hey Musikant" (the German version
of "Hej Gamle Man", "War Die Liebe Sagt "(the
German version of "Livet Gar Sing Gang"), "Pa
Brollop", " Traskofolket'", "Love Has It's
Ways," and the original version
of "Rock N Roll Band".

"Pa Brollop" and
"Traskofolket" are good pseudo- Swedish folks songs.

1970 She's My kind of Girl ( RING RING/
Inga Theme LYKCA

These Two songs were recorded
for the movie, Seduction of Inga,in late 1969.
"She's My Kind of a Girl " is a pleasant bouncy track
if a bit stupid lyrically. The "Inga Theme" features
chanting and humming and some interesting if not very coherent
bits of melody. "She's My kind of Girl" rather strangely
became a big Japanese hit in 1972. "She's My Kind of Girl"
also appears on some versions of the "RingRing" album
even though it was recorded in 1969.

This is one of the most
obscure of B&B's singles-since neither side has been released
on Lp o. The b-side "Pa Brollop "(at the wedding) is
probably the more enjoyable record.

"Pa Brollop "
violins and all sounds like an Orsa Spelman record as covered
by ABBA...

1970@Hej Gamle Man / LYCKA
Lycka 1970 LYCKA

Two tracks chosen from the Lycka
album - "Hej Gamle Man" was a hitin Sweden.

1971Tank Om Jorden Ung Vore Ung
LYCKA/
Traskofolket LYCKA bonus track

The later Lp pressings and the Cd versions
of LYCKA include a 1971 A -side that wasn't on the original album.
That A-side "Tank Om Jorden Vore Ung'features Agnetha and
Frida on backing vocals and like a few of the B&B records
has a ever-so slight country twinge to it. "Traskofolket"
is a folksky song complete wit7h accordion inspired by Vilhem
Moberg's "The Emigrants" and a song about the Wooden
clogged people of those books.

The Swedish version of "Merry
Go Round" was actually released as a single,the b-side was
the country balladish sounding"Att Finnas Till".Neither
song was released on album till the 1990's.For some reason even
the English version of "Merry Go Round" was not compiled
on the RING RING album until the recent 2001 remastering.

Björn and Benny''s Japanese
market only singles...

1972 She's My Kind of Girl RING RING/
Inga Theme NA

These two tracks were recorded
by B&B for the Swedish /American soft pornmovie called
"The Seduction of Inga", Somehow, "She's My Kind
ofGirl" became a surprise breakout hit in Japan
in 1972, selling at least a quarter of a million copies, The
b-side is thesemi-instrumental musical theme for the movie.

1972 Love Has It's Ways NA/
Rock And Roll band(early vers)NA

Oddly "Love Has It's
Ways' was never released anywhere on vinyl but Japan."Love
Has It's Ways"was a collaboration initiated by B&B's
Japanese record company., as a follow up to "She's My Kind
of Girl". It was not successful and the Japanses copmpany
lost interest.

The music for "Love Has
It's Ways " was
supposedly co written by a Japanese songwriter (K.Morita)
It is a bouncy song with good piano intro by B&B but is was
the last English language track from their B&B days to be
reissued on CD, Perhaps ,because B&B resented the input of
the Japanese songwriter, or perhaps Polar never even owned the
track.

The early ABBA singles credited to Björn
& Benny with Agnetha & Frida

ABBA first six
singles included a number of rare tracks, many of whichwere only released in Sweden.

(On right of
chart see where to get the song on CD! A few of these songs have
not been released internationally.

This is as close as is there
is to an ABBA Swedish language album. This 18 song compilation
features songs by Agnetha,Björn and Benny, Frida and ABBA.
All of the songs date from 1970 to 1976. This is essential album
to the ABBA collector, though probably not recommended for people
who prefer to listen to all their music in English

Although PA SVENSKA was not
released till 1994 it is really the only multiple artist compilation
of pre -ABBA solo work. Polar never tried to do anything like
this in the 1970's.

There are 6 ABBA songs here-
(two of which were released as solo recordings). Included are
the Swedish versions of "Waterloo", Ring Ring"
and "Honey Honey' . Also, there are Frida's solo Swedish
version of "Fernando' and Agnetha's solo version of "SOS".
ABBA didn't do Swedish versions of any of their post 1976 hits.
Many of ABBA's other songs were recorded in Swedish by other
artists.

A sixth song (recorded only
in Swedish), "Ah Vilka Tider' is also credited to Agnetha,
Björn, Benny, and Anni-frid. This song like Björn and
Benny's "Att Finnas till",and "En Karusell"
(a Swedish version of "Merry Go Round " ) are only
available on this Cd.

There are four pre-ABBA Agnetha
songs here, all of which are available elsewhere on CD. These
songs all seem to have at least one of the other Abba members
on them-notice Frida, and Björn on the the chorus to "Drom
Ar Drom och Saga Saga".

Two of Frida's solo songs
are available on CD only here. These would be both sides of Frida's
1972 Polar single "Man Vill Leva lite Dessmellan /"Ska
Man Skratta Eller Grata" . These two songs were written
by Italians but translated by Stig into Swedish. Italian Songs
sung in Swedish lose their Italian-ity!

This album is subtitled- Stikkan
Anderson picks Polars Pearls. So in theory ,Stig made the track
selections. Frida's 1975 solo album FRIDA ENSAM is represented
by three tracks -"Fernando", "Som en Sparv"
and "Vill Du lana en man" ("The Most Beautiful
Girl In the World" ) . Why did Stig pick the worst song
(The Most Beautiful Girl...)from the FRIDA ENSAM and put it on
this CD -the only reason I can think of is that Stig wrote the
lyrics and was after the publishing royalities.

The other seventeen songs
however, do belong on this Cd. The only problem
with this project is it leaves many of the pre- ABBA Björn
and Benny tracks uncompiled ,and it really doesn't do
justice to the full depth of the pre-ABBA solo work -you would
really need two
or three CD's to do that. The only place currently to get most
of the B&B/early ABBA rarities in one place is a bootleg
called -TO ALL ABBA FANS.

Still this is good album for
those who want just a want a small taste of A,B,B and F's work
in Swedish.